Respect

When recently researching the various side effects I've had from having mono as a kid, I came across something that surprised me: that mono is in the Epstein Barr family (which I kinda knew) and that it's believed that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is as well.

Well, let me tell you, after two flare ups in six months or so, I have enormous, everlasting respect for someone who has CFS.  I don't know if I can explain how tired you actually feel, but let me try:

1.  Every morning -- every morning -- during a flare up or when really sick, I wake up and immediately list in my head the things that *must* be done that day.  Not "really should."  Not "ought to."  Not "oh, I'd love to write a little tonight."  Nuh uh.  It's: "Wake up, get dressed, work at school, type next week's journal, dinner, SLEEP."

2.  My ability to multitask is utterly shot.  A couple of weeks ago, I successfully ran a group consisting of Elastigirl, Bart, Bulldozer, and, I think, Smiley.  Today, it was all I could do to keep track of PH and Bulldozer this morning.

3.  My attention span is nil.  I accidentally wrote "November" on four or five of Elastigirl's labels (she matches the name of the month) for next week.  I counted wrong when making labels for M to do math with.

I lived through about six months of this in eighth grade.  A week of it is driving me insane now.

So if any of my readers are diagnosed with CFS, I bow down to you in abject humility that you manage to function in the long term at all.